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17,448 Posts
A real crapshoot here.
The max range of 45 miles is at a speed of 25mph.
I really wish they would stop calling these things 'zero emissions'. The emissions happen at the power plant instead of on the street. For most of the country that's coal.
It has a number of problems to overcome. First off it's $12K for the performance of a 50cc scooter.
Usually new products are very expensive (VCRs, Camcorders, Computers, etc for example) but if they are popular with the more wealthy the prices of these products drops lower and lower over time until they become affordable for most people. The problem here is that I don't see lawyers and doctors and investment bankers buying these things to ride to work.
I'm afraid that this thing will more closely follow the 'success' of the Segway scooter. It'll be a limited interest item and the company will have to offer special long term contracts to move many of them. Even then I doubt many will want to pay the same for this that they would for a Toyota Yaris. It's doubtful the middle class will be willing to fork over the cash for these in any numbers. Heck, even with the EV automobiles the industry couldn't attract the wealthy self-professed greenies in any numbers and thus the EV went bye bye.
If they want to offer 50cc performance then they'd better find a way to get somewhere near 50cc price fairly quickly. I don't think that trying to make people feel guilty will be a good marketing strategy.
The max range of 45 miles is at a speed of 25mph.
I really wish they would stop calling these things 'zero emissions'. The emissions happen at the power plant instead of on the street. For most of the country that's coal.
It has a number of problems to overcome. First off it's $12K for the performance of a 50cc scooter.
Usually new products are very expensive (VCRs, Camcorders, Computers, etc for example) but if they are popular with the more wealthy the prices of these products drops lower and lower over time until they become affordable for most people. The problem here is that I don't see lawyers and doctors and investment bankers buying these things to ride to work.
I'm afraid that this thing will more closely follow the 'success' of the Segway scooter. It'll be a limited interest item and the company will have to offer special long term contracts to move many of them. Even then I doubt many will want to pay the same for this that they would for a Toyota Yaris. It's doubtful the middle class will be willing to fork over the cash for these in any numbers. Heck, even with the EV automobiles the industry couldn't attract the wealthy self-professed greenies in any numbers and thus the EV went bye bye.
If they want to offer 50cc performance then they'd better find a way to get somewhere near 50cc price fairly quickly. I don't think that trying to make people feel guilty will be a good marketing strategy.
